When I woke up – we were passing sites like this, so I grabbed my camera for a few photos. 
Meanwhile, my cabin mates all looked like this…
The water was so perfectly still, it was an overcast day and the weather was cool. Cute little villages and houses dotted the landscape.
One really amazing and interesting thing about Europe is – almost everywhere you look, you can see the remnants of war. This was an embankment that had cannons on it.
Finally cruising in the port in Oslo!!
Tessa patiently waiting for our disembark time to arrive!!
I didn’t have any specific excursions planned for Oslo, but I had pre-purchased Oslo City Pass tickets that let us get into many museums and attractions for free. And when we got off the ship, we also decided to buy some Hop On/Off bus tour tickets to get us around town. We have found it’s a great way to get around a city and see the main highlights if you don’t have a lot of time. Our port time was 10:15am – 5:45pm so we had a good chunk of time to get in as much as we could!
We got on the bus tour and were on our way around Oslo! One interesting thing I found on this cruise – Some of the places we visited, like Oslo – many of the buildings and architecture looked so new! 
Being funny on the bus!
This area was a really affluent part of Oslo. These are residential homes and the surrounding area is really nice.
Making our way to some of the museums I wanted to visited via the bus tour. We passed by some countryside and of course saw sheep, cows and horses!
The Viking Museum
We made it to the Viking Museum! It was a small museum, but had some really interesting artifacts! And the Viking ships were amazing! It is really hard to fathom that grown men would be in these ships crossing seas and oceans! 
(this ship looks HUGE compared to the guy in red…but it’s just the angle! – but they were big ships!)
There was such detail carved into this wagon! The level of detail carved into the wood on these artifacts is so fine and intricate. 
Kon-Tiki Musuem
Our next stop was the Kon-Tiki Museum. 
I found this museum to be quite fascinating because it is all about 6 men who decided to build a raft and sail across the Pacific Ocean in 1947! This is a map of how far they got in 101 days – they made it from Peru to the Polynesian Islands! The most amazing part is – none of them were sailors, and all but one had NO maritime experience!!
This is the actual raft that they built and lived on for 3+ months. It was called Kon-Tiki and is made out of balsa wood. This museum was built to house this raft specifically. I loved the flags at the top of the sail that represented each of the men on the raft.
And this was their shelter while living on the sea!
But their experiment showed that people from South America could have made it to Easter Island. This is the actual height of an Easter Island statue! You can compare it to the guy in the white shirt at the bottom right of the picture.
Statue outside the museum.
This museum houses another raft called the Ra II. This raft is made out of reeds and was sailed from North Africa to the Caribbean.
Next up was the Fram Museum. Luckily it was right next door to the Kon-Tiki Museum, so it was easy to get there! Now they were stating that it is the “best museum in Norway” – while it was interesting, I’m not sure I would rate it as the “best.” But interesting none-the-less. 
This museum houses a HUGE ship (named the Fram) that was used in the most northern polar expeditions. It is considered to be the world’s strongest, wooden ship. Per the museum website: She was used on three important expeditions: with Fridtjof Nansen on a drift over the Arctic Ocean 1893-96, with Otto Sverdrup to the arctic archipelago west of Greenland – now the Nunavut region of Canada – 1898-1902, and with Roald Amundsen to Antarctica for his South Pole expedition 1910-12.
It was great because you could actually go aboard the ship and see just how big it really was!
Their dioarama displays were neat.
I think the glasses make the outfit!
Maritime Museum
Next stop was the Maritime Museum. Again it was right next to the Fram and Kon-Tiki Museums, so it was easy to find. 
It had some beautiful ship mastheads on display. 
Outside the museum, we could see our ship!
The last place I wanted to visit before getting back on the ship was Akershus Fortress. Luckily for us, it was directly across the street from the ship, so we knew we not miss the boat! I stood on this hill and could take a picture of the Disney Magic!
Historians are not sure when exactly this medieval castle was built, but they believe is was around 1290 – 1300. It was built after an attack happened on the city, and they realized they needed more defenses. It has also been used as a prison.
A portion of the fortress was replicated at the Norway pavilion in Epcot at Disney World as well.
It was a steep walk up into the fortress.
Once you got inside the walls – you can see these mysterious, creepy statues everywhere. They really did not sit well with Oldest!! And I have no information as to why they were there or what they were about. But there are rumors that this is a very haunted place!!
Then we made it to the castle part of the grounds. 
The was the Royal Mausoleum
Banquet Halls
Dining Hall – I do believe they have enough chairs to invite half of Olso to dinner!!
Walking around the Fortress – 
And this was the view of Olso from the top of the fortress wall. 
We were tired and had done a lot of walking. It time to get back on the boat for dinner and then a show, but not before meeting Rapunzel! 
Next Stop – Kristiansand, Norway!!
From Here to There - A Move Across an Ocean 